Penza, 20 August 2014. PenzaNews. No price increase in connection with Russian embargo on the supply of food from the European Union, the USA, Canada, Australia and Norway is registered in the Penza region, said Vyacheslav Orlov, deputy chairman of the regional government, during a retail inspection tour in Penza on Tuesday, August 19.

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In particular, he visited “Karavan” and “Magnit” stores on Lunacharskogo Street.

Vyacheslav Orlov paid special attention to dairy products, fruit, vegetables and seafood.

“I talked to the citizens, and none of them complained about sharp increases in prices. This means that embargo did not affect the wallets of Penza region citizens. And now our task is to monitor the situation and keep it unchanged. To do this, we conduct daily price monitoring. A special operations committee was formed. Its representatives monitor big and small shopping centers in all municipalities,” the deputy chairman in the region informed.

In his view, a ban on the supply of food from a number of countries should strengthen the local producers.

“The difference in prices between domestic and imported products is high. Moreover, the high cost of imported food is not a trading trick, but initially high prices from the manufacturers. Now that the shelves in the stores are exempted, domestic producers, including Penza ones, have a great opportunity to fill them with their own products. Our companies have everything in order to substitute the items which used to be imported,” Vyacheslav Orlov said.

As news agency PenzaNews reported earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin, signed the Executive Order “On special economic measures to protect Russia’s security” on August 6, 2014.

In particular, the document places one-year bans and restrictions on the import of agricultural products, raw materials and food from the countries which joined the sanctions against Russia.

On August 7, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced that he had signed the decree introducing an embargo on a number of categories of food from the EU, USA, Australia, Canada and Norway.

In the Penza region, the volume of imported products which fell under the ban is 5-15% for cheeses, 1-4.5% for dairy products, 3-15% for fruit, 2-6% for vegetables and potatoes, 7-13% for freshly frozen sea fish.